


A Catalog of Non-Definitive Acts

by especiallythezefronposter



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (though only once), Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bruce Keeps A Journal, Child Abuse, Depression, Foster Care, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Recreational Drug Use, Suicide, i'm probably forgetting lots of tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2298575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/especiallythezefronposter/pseuds/especiallythezefronposter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony stops drinking. Bruce knows he still wants to sometimes, because on those days he gets restless and sips Kool Aid from a bendy straw, but he never gives in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Catalog of Non-Definitive Acts

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry, truly. This didn't turn out the way I expected it to.

Bruce isn't good at social interactions, so he boils them down to theory, scribbles them down in his notebook in a way he understands.

  _How To Be Polite To The Old Lady At The Other Side Of The Waiting Room_  
  _Step 1: Make eye contact_  
  _Step 2: Smile_  
  _Step 3: If she smiles back, offer her coffee; if she doesn't, resume writing and try not to feel embarrassed_

She smiles back, so he stands up, walks over to the ancient coffee machine he uses more often than the one at home and asks her if she wants something. When he hands her a styrofoam cup, she thanks him and tells him he's a good boy.

He sits down with his own coffee and takes a sip. The coffee in the waiting room is always lukewarm, so he doesn't burn his tongue. He picks up his notebook again, scratches at his beanie and feels somewhat confused at the absence of curls, then starts writing again. This time it's not a three-step guide for normal human interaction, but a list of ways to make chemo therapy more efficient. None of them would work for real (he's not going to get old enough to adjust them until they do), but he can still pretend for now.

Someone steps inside the waiting room and sits down beside the old lady, in the chair closest to the door. It's a boy his age. He walks with a limp, barely uses his right leg, but he isn't bald and his cheeks aren't hollow. His eyes dart towards Bruce and he gives him a distracted wave and a muttered greeting. Bruce assumes that step 1 and 2 of the being-nice-to-old-ladies guide can be applied in any situation that requires basic politeness, so he makes eye contact and smiles. 

The boy opens his backpack, gets out his homework and sets to work. He's done by the time Bruce has added six items to his chemo therapy list and started a new one, titled _Beautiful Things About The Boy Sitting Beside The Old Lady_ , which counts nine items for now. It's impressive, Bruce thinks as the boy picks up one of the magazines from the coffee table and starts to flip through the articles. Bruce had seen even from where he's sitting that those were some pretty advanced math problems and the boy had tackled them one by one chewing the back of his pen and shifting in his chair as if he had too much energy inside of him. He shifts again, supports himself with the wrong leg and hisses. Bruce puts it on the list.

A young man with only one arm walks out of the door at the far side of the room and Dr. Potts peeks her head through the door, waving at Bruce before she calls the old lady in. Then they're alone in the waiting room. The boy looks up, tosses the magazine back to the table and catches Bruce's eye. 'So, what kind of cancer do you have?', he asks, his voice as low and clear as Bruce had expected. He's leaning forward, elbows on his thighs as if he's really interested in the answer.

The forwardness of the question makes Bruce uncomfortable, though he shouldn't be surprised. The boy moves with confidence, has the air of someone who is used to getting what he wants, and every patient of Dr. Potts's knows that she's specialized cancer patients. And it's not like Bruce's lack of hair and general skin-and-boniness give anything away. 'Leukemia,' he says as he adjusts his beanie, suddenly very aware of how terrible he looks compared to this stranger. Though he guesses most people look terrible compared to him.

'Life expectancy?', the boy continues and Bruce wonders of it would be weird to write down how good the boy looks when he's serious like this while he's watching him.

'I'm not sure. I'm getting the results when Dr. Potts calls me in. I used to have three years, but it might be more now. Or less.' There's a silence in which Bruce calculates how offensive the words on his lips would be in various situations, then he decides that the boy doesn't look like he'd be offended by anything Bruce could think to say, so he notes, 'You don't look like a cancer patient.'

The boy smiles at him. 'I'm not. Pep's a friend who offered to treat my wounds when they take too long in the emergency room. I have to admit that I'm here pathetically often. Being a clumsy, dangerous experiment enthusiast and all.'

Bruce can believe the last part, but even with his leg possibly broken, the boy doesn't move clumsily. 'I've never seen you here before.'

The boy scratches his neck, keeps up his smile though the rest of his face falls. He's very subtle about it; a darkening of his irises, a tightening of his mouth, a loosening of the muscles around his eyes. 'I tend to get hurt at night, most of the time.'

There's a lot of things Bruce wants to say. The first thing is that he knows that look, knows those lies by heart because he's told them so many times. Instead he asks, 'What's your name?'

The boy stands up and limps over to extend a hand with a smile. 'Tony.'

Bruce smiles genuinely, taking his hand. 'Bruce.'

  _How to make a New Friend_  
  _Step 1: Tell him your name_  
  _Step 2: Smile at each other stupidly for an undetermined amount of time_  
  _Step 3: Exchange numbers_

-

Bruce calls Tony only three hours later, though he isn't sure Tony's appointment with Dr. Potts is over yet. 'Hey,' he says. 'The chemo is working. I'm most probably not going to die in the next three years.'

Tony cheers with him for a moment, then says. 'Are you allowed to consume copious amounts of booze? Because this sounds like a good reason to get completely smashed.'

Bruce thinks of angry hands and the smell of liquor, but pushes the memory away. His dad doesn't get to ruin the first good news he's gotten since he remembers. 'Is there anything stupid we could do that doesn't involve alcohol?', he asks, trying to convince himself that he shouldn't be ashamed of this, that Tony will understand.

'Of course,' Tony says immediately, as if _he_ is ashamed. He thinks the options over for a moment. 'You're okay with weed?'

'I guess we'll see,' Bruce breathes when he realizes what's actually happening. Tony only met him today and he's proposing to get high with him to celebrate that he's not going to die, without asking why his foster parents aren't doing that. The answer is that he hasn't told them yet; his foster mom is still at work, at the hospital, and he never talks to his foster father, who is in the kitchen, trying to prepare dinner without making any noise.

'Great!', Tony exclaims and Bruce thinks he has to write that down, the way Tony sounds when he's genuinely enthusiastic about something. He imagines his face, teeth showing and the corners of his eyes crinkling, the brown of his irises warm. 'I'll see you at ten, okay? I'll text you my address.'

-

  _How To Smile At Someone When They Open The Door Without Looking Like You've Been Exited/Nervous About Seeing Them For The Last Two Hours_  
  _Step 1: Smile and don't touch your beanie_  
  _Step 2: Say hi_  
  _Step 3: Resist the urge to hug them when they move their arms a little in the way that means they would hug you if you leaned in_

Tony seems nervous when he lets Bruce in, supporting himself and his right leg, which is wrapped securely in a cast, with one crutch. 'It's just a dorm room,' he says, fixing his hair. 'It looks sort of stupid, but my mom wanted to be sure a roommate would be able to afford the place so I didn't have to live alone. His name is Rhodey, but he's staying home over winter break.' He moves his hands (even the one holding the crutch) a lot when he speaks and Bruce's fingers itch for his notebook and a pen.

'How old are you?', Bruce asks as he looks around. They're in a surprisingly spacious living room with a big but old-looking leather couch that has at least eight blankets draped over the sides and piled between the cushions. Underneath the TV lies a suitcase filled with DVDs and video games and the whole place smells of coffee. It makes Bruce smile.

'Sixteen,' Tony says, then, 'What? I'm turning seventeen in a month. Why do you look so surprised?'

'You're at MIT at sixteen?', Bruce can't help but sound incredulous, though he can easily believe that Tony is a complete genius.

'I was fifteen when I started here, but yeah, pretty much.' He shrugs. 'It's fun.'

  _How To Get High (doesn't classify as a social interaction)_  
  _Step 1: Take Tony's instructions when he hands you the joint. Remember to add being genuinely concerned about you having fun and reassuring you even when he's stoned to the list of things that are beautiful about him_  
  _Step 2: Don't cough too much_  
  _Step 3: Stop talking_

The thing is that Bruce can't stop talking. One moment he's staring at Tony's broken leg, the next he's thinking of all the times he felt his own bones snap and he's saying, 'My dad used to beat me when I was younger. He hit me mostly, but sometimes he got out a belt, or a baseball bat, or once even a whiskey bottle. He drank a lot, that's why I didn't like the getting drunk thing you suggested. When I was really young it didn't happen often, but as I got older, the beatings got more frequent, more violent. More unpredictable, too. That was the worst, I think, coming home from school and being greeted by a fist for no good reason.' Bruce's hand finds Tony's undamaged ankle and after a moment Tony's hands close over his.

Tony is serious now, his eyes big and solemn like a child's. 'What did you do?'

Bruce wonders numbly if it's the weed that's loosening his tongue, that's making him say things he only told a court psychiatrist before. 'I shot him with the gun he used to kill my mother. I was too much of a coward to actually save her.' He thinks for a moment, then adds, 'That was before my diagnosis.' He hopes that Tony understands what he wants to say, that no one can get away with shooting their father, that there's always consequences.

There is a long silence, then Tony says. 'My dad once poured a pot of hot coffee over my chest, then didn't let me go to the emergency room. He gave every maid and butler and even the cooks a day off and I had to take care of it all by myself. My mom was out of the country. I was seven.'

Bruce is kneading Tony's ankle now, then sliding his hands down to massage his feet. Tony seems to relax a little. 'How come you have cooks and maids and butlers?', Bruce asks after a while.

Tony lifts his shoulders and ducks his head until his ears are aligned with the tops of his shoulders in a very exaggerated shrug that doesn't seem so strange at that exact moment. 'My dad is Howard Stark.' Tony rolls another joint and Bruce wonders how many times he's done this before, thinks that he should make a new list just for this, the way Tony's fingers move when he knows what he's doing.

'You're Tony Stark?' he asks as he takes the joint from him.

Tony looks dead serious and a little terrified, until Bruce starts laughing. Tony joins him, giggling, 'I am, I am.' and by the time they stop, they're clutching at each other and so close that it would be a shame not to lean in and kiss each other until they have to stop to laugh some more.

Bruce doesn't actually write the next instructions down in his notebook, because he can barely even _think_ the words without feeling stupid when he's sober again, but he forms the steps in his mind and tucks them away in a warm corner of his brain, along with memories of his mother's smile and her soft hands.

  _How To Fall In Love With Tony_  
  _Step 1: Kiss him whenever you get the chance (it always makes him smile)_  
  _Step 2: Take him to his dentist's appointment because he really doesn't like dentists and he's been putting it off_  
  _Step 3: Hold his hand in public, even if it scares you (his reassuring smile might be the most beautiful of all)_

There are more steps, probably and between his notes about radioactivity and cancer cells he starts a new list, simply titled _Tony_.

-

As time goes by, the appointments with Dr. Potts get fewer, Bruce gains some weight and his hair starts to grow back. On the day the snow starts to melt he doesn't wear his beanie outside for the first time in years, and Tony kisses the top of his head and tells him he looks beautiful.

The next two months are some of the best Bruce has ever had. 

When his foster parents find out he's together with Tony they sit him down to have a talk about how he should and shouldn't react to homophobia ('Don't hold back,' his mom says. 'I know you can throw a mean punch.') and to remind him that they'll always be supporting him, and that they won't be the only ones. Tony spends Christmas at Bruce's house after admitting to Bruce that his parents haven't really celebrated Christmas with him since he was five and Bruce strongly insisting that he can stay with them if he wants to, whenever he wants to. They go to a memorial service for a bunch of people that died of cancer and AIDS in the past few years, because Bruce knows at least half a dozen of them, and Tony doesn't let go of his waist for as long as they're there. When classes start again after winter break, Tony takes him to a few of the more fun lectures, because Bruce once told him he had always wanted to study at MIT when he was little, before he got sick.

Still, when sits down with his notebook and tries to write down the best part of his time with Tony, he can't come up with anything. It's simply that spending time with Tony, even just doing homework as Tony makes tiny moving toys that fight each other with toothpick swords at the other side of the couch, is his favorite thing to do.

-

  _How To Make Everything Okay_  
  _Step 1: Pretend that everything already is okay_  
  _Step 2: Try harder_  
  _Step 3: You can't_

-

The doorbell rings and Bruce wakes up. His foster parents start talking softly at the other side of the hallway and he almost decides to go back to sleep, but then his phone buzzes with a text. It's from Tony, he notes when his eyes have gotten used to the intensity of his phone screen's light. _I'm not even sure if you're awake at four in the morning, but it'd be cool if you came to open the door. I'm not going to rob you or something. Though I might bleed on your carpet. Don't worry, though. Just open the door._

Bruce gets out of bed so fast he sees black spots for a moment, switches on the light in his room and goes to tell his parents that it's Tony, that it's okay, that they should go back to sleep.

When he opens to door, Tony looks up at him from where he's seated on the porch, smiling self-deprecatingly. 'Could you help me up?', he asks. 'Though no, wait. That might not be a good idea. I broke my leg again, I think.'

They haven't talked about their fathers since that time they got high and Bruce isn't sure Tony even remembers that, so he asks, 'How?'

'I fell from - Hell, you already know, don't you? I probably went all confessional on you on pot-night.'

Bruce doesn't answer. 'Let's get you inside,' he says instead. 'Is your other leg okay? You could lean on me. Do you want me to carry you?'

Tony smiles dryly, but it turns into a grimace when he starts to pull himself up. 'Leaning's fine, though I better watch I don't let my hand come anywhere near your beautiful Toy Story shirt. How do those even exist in your size?'

Bruce wants to make a remark about how long Tony has been teasing him about that shirt, but all he can do is stare at his left hand and wonder how he didn't notice it's covered in blood.

When they get to the living room (with some difficulty) Bruce's foster mom is waiting for them with a first aid kit. It has happened before that Tony turned up with cuts or bruises he didn't want to explain, but never at this hour, never this bad.

His mother is better at this, and she treats Tony's wounds methodically, without freaking out over each one the way Bruce does. Bruce makes a list of injuries, but decides he won't write them down, tucks them away along with memories he never thinks of, of the panic boiling up in his throat as he wonders if his dad is really going to kill him this time and if anyone is ever going to find him if he does.

  _Tony's Injuries On February The 26th_  
  _\- A black eye_  
  _\- A bleeding nose_  
  _\- A broken leg_  
  _\- A cut in the forehead, possibly from hitting the edge of a piece of furniture_  
  _\- A mild concussion_  
  _\- Bruises on chest and back_  
  _\- Cuts in the legs, especially knees and shins, possibly from broken glass_  
  _\- Hand-shaped bruises around wrists and upper arms_  
  _\- Small cuts in left hand, possibly from broken glass_  
  _\- ..._

It makes Bruce nauseous, because he can't stop thinking of Tony curling into himself on the floor and his dad _not stopping_. He can't stop thinking of Tony trying to defend himself even if one of his legs is completely useless and his dad _not stopping_. In his head pictures he's seen of Howard Stark and the man he remembers as his own father merge into one and Bruce can barely hear Tony asking him if he's alright above the rush of blood in his ears, walks out the backdoor numbly. 

The cold helps, the dark helps and when he goes back inside, his mother is looking at Tony's leg with pursed lips. 'I can't take care of this,' she says after a few more moments. 'And a doctor needs to check if you have a concussion anyway. I'm gonna have to drive you to the hospital, Tony.'

Bruce sighs, walks over to Tony and touches his shoulder gently. 'What's Dr. Potts's number?'

Tony fishes his phone out of his pocket and hands it to him, smiling slightly. 'I always call her Dr. Pepper.'

Bruce finds her number and explains what's going on quickly. She proposes to come over and he gives her their address.

By the time she gets there, twenty minutes later, Tony is watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with his head resting on Bruce's shoulder.

'Your hair's getting long,' Tony had told him at some point, right hand reaching into Bruce's hair. 'I like it.' The warmth doesn't quite fade, even when Pepper starts to check Tony's leg and Bruce is reminded of what's going on, that this time, Tony isn't here because he likes to spend time with Bruce, but because he has nowhere else to go.

Pepper asks Tony what happened and maybe the answer rattles Bruce as much as it does because he was expecting Tony to shrug it off, start talking about some experiment he shouldn't have done this late at night. 'I missed my mom, so I went to the mansion to see her. I forgot that she's in Spain for the rest of the month, but I missed my dad, too, so it was good that at least I got to see him. He isn't that bad, you know, when he's not drunk he's pretty decent. So we're talking and he's drinking red wine, which is good. Red wine makes him sleepy; it's whiskey that makes him angry. So we're talking and I ask him if he ever hit mom and he says... He says 'only once'.' Tony swallows. 'So I punch him in the face. So he beats me up. So he's a skinny old man and I'm supposed to be able to beat _him_ but I can't stop thinking I'm five.'

No one knows what to say after that, and Tony doesn't seem to be expecting anything, so the four of them sit in silence until dawn creeps through the windows.

-

Bruce graduates and his foster parents are crying, because they probably never allowed themselves to hope he would ever live this long. He hugs his foster mom first, and then his foster dad, which is significant somehow, because he's never hugged him before.

Tony is standing in the back, arm in a sling because six days ago he got drunk and decided it was time to apologize to his father. It hits Bruce then, looking past the smiling and cheering crowd at Tony that he isn't the boy he met in the waiting room all those months ago. He's pale, skinnier and his eyes are unfocused. When Bruce's name is called he beams with pride and makes up for his inability to clap by whistling loudly, but he still looks miserable.

Bruce tries to talk to him about it, but Tony tells him he got hit by a good idea at two am and spent the rest of the night working on it; that he's just tired and Bruce doesn't have to worry. Then they're having dinner with Bruce's parents and Bruce can't possibly bring it up anymore.

He promises himself he'll talk about it when they go to sleep that night, because Bruce's parents have allowed them to sleep in the same bed, but Tony is kissing him before they're even properly under the sheets, gaze focused and intent as if Bruce is a problem he needs to solve. Bruce stops him with a hand on his chest, tries to say something, but Tony's eyes are huge and he's saying, 'Please. Please, I don't want to talk about it tonight.'

Bruce thinks, _Will you ever want to talk about it?_ , but he doesn't say anything.

-

  _How To Comfort Tony When He Gets All Quiet And Lost In Thought_  
  _Step 1: Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer with him_  
  _Step 2: Hold him close_  
  _Step 3: You can't, you can't, you can't_

-

Their first time is all kinds of wonderful. Tony kissing his way down Bruce's stomach and grinning against his lips, Tony's hips bucking impatiently when Bruce stops to make sure he isn't hurting, Tony biting his bottom lip when he comes, muttering Bruce's name in the aftermath, smiling contently, almost serenely as he rests his head on Bruce's shoulder and traces the scars on the latter's chest.

It's the start of a whole new list, that has the same title as the one before that, but isn't as long yet.

-

Tony stops drinking. Bruce knows he still wants to sometimes, because on those days he gets restless and sips Kool Aid from a bendy straw, but he never gives in.

Once Bruce finds him sitting on the roof of his house, accessed through the attic window, an unopened bottle of Scotch beside him. He must have heard Bruce climb through the window, because he takes a sip of the glass of Kool Aid standing at his other side and starts talking to him without looking up. 'The smell of alcohol makes me sick,' he says. 'Once Rhodey came home drunk and _I_ was the one that vomited. Still, I want to drink so bad. I can't stop thinking about it.' His voice breaks and he reaches for his Kool Aid again, but the glass is empty. 'How do you do it?', he asks. 'The never drinking thing.'

Bruce shrugs. 'I never started. That's different.'

Tony is silent for a long time and Bruce reaches for his hand. 'I just wish...' Tony wipes at his lips harshly and the scars on the back of his hand stand out like stars in the moonlight. 'I just wish I could stop thinking of my dad. I keep waiting for his calls, keep hoping when the doorbell rings, it's him at the door. I want to go to the mansion to make things alright, but we both know how that worked out in the past.'

Bruce squeezes his hand, shuffles closer, putting himself between Tony and the bottle of Scotch. 'I could come with you. We could go to a restaurant with him and nothing bad would have to happen.'

There's hope in Tony's eyes when he turns to look at him, though Bruce can tell from his tone of voice that his next words are a warning. 'He calls me faggot a lot, when he beats me.'

Bruce wraps an arm around his shoulders, tells him it's going to be okay so that they can both pretend to believe it for a little while.

-

  _How To React When Your Lover Tells You He Has A Recurring Nightmare In Which He Keeps Breaking His Legs_  
  _Step 1: Wipe away his tears_  
  _Step 2: Hold him close_  
  _Step 3: Don't sleep for the rest of the night, so that you can wake him up when the nightmare comes back_

-

The dinner goes better than Bruce expected, though Howard is quiet and only apologizes once, when Bruce stands up to use the bathroom. When he comes back Tony is smiling slightly and Howard looks a little less tense. Bruce counts it as a win and squeezes Tony's hand under the table.

In the next few weeks Tony visits the Mansion three times and only comes back with a broken nose once.

-

Rhodey is the one that finds Tony's body. He only calls Bruce when the funeral home has come to take him away. When Bruce asks how it happened he hopes Rhodey will tell him that none of this is real, but all he says is 'He took a bunch of pills.' and that's that. He didn't even leave a note.

The funeral is awful, the kind of thing Tony would've hated if he were still alive. Everyone is wearing black and the priest's words sound hollow in the echoing church.

Bruce sits in the front row with Howard and Maria Stark, his foster parents, Rhodey and Dr. Potts, who insists that he can call her Pepper. There are other people, too, men and women he's never seen or heard of before, friends of Maria's and colleagues of Howard's, but barely anyone that's come for Tony Stark instead of his parents.

His mother nudges him and he stands up, clinging to his notebook as he walks past the coffin and adjusts the microphone. 'I am a cancer survivor. I met Tony on the day I found out the chemo was working and I wasn't going to die. I'm sure he could appreciate the irony of me outliving him.' He stops for a moment to push back a sob and wipe at his eyes. 'This is the notebook I was writing in when I first saw him... and I made this list. Of everything beautiful about him. It's become a list of everything I'm going to miss about him, now.' He opens the worn journal on the right page and reads them some of the things they'd surely recognize, less than he planned because he can't stop crying. When he looks up and wipes away his tears, he sees some people smiling slightly, some people only crying harder.

He manages to get back to his seat before he turns into a sobbing mess and his foster dad wraps him up in a hug while his foster mom holds his hand.

After the service, Maria Stark comes to hug him and Howard Stark shakes his hand and apologizes six times. (Bruce writes them all down in his notebook, his second last entry before he tucks the thing away in a box of his mother's clothes.)

  _Howard Stark's Apologies On The 19th of September._  
  _1\. I'm sorry I wasn't who he needed me to be_  
  _2\. I'm sorry I didn't try harder_  
  _3\. I'm sorry I disappointed him_  
  _4\. I'm sorry I disappointed you_  
  _5\. I'm sorry_  
  _6\. I'm so, so sorry_

When Tony's coffin sinks into the ground, his mother nudges him again and he walks over to the gaping hole, drops the rose he had been holding and only realizes then that the thorns had been digging into his palms. He lets something else fall onto the lid of the coffin, too, a folded note that says, _I love you so much. I'm sorry I never told you._

He is the last to leave the gravesite and no one tells him that it's time to go. Eventually his mother kisses him on the forehead and he's alone with Tony again. It takes him hours to find the strength to leave, but eventually he manages it, though there's a part of him that tears loose as he takes the first few steps, a part that refuses to let go. He lets it stay there, hopes it will keep Tony company.

-

  _How To Walk Away From Someone You Love (Without Forgetting Them, You'll Never Forget Him)_  
  _Step 1: Walk away_  
  _Step 2: Tell yourself not to cry_  
  _Step 3: Wipe away your tears_  
  _Step 4: Tell yourself not to look back_  
  _Step 5: Turn around_


End file.
